API News Roundup for May 2019

This week Cisco Systems Inc. posted a critical security advisory addressing a vulnerability in the REST API of its Elastic Services Controller (ESC). If successfully exploited, the vulnerability could let an unauthenticated, remote attacker bypass authentication on the REST API.

Google Launches "In-app Updates API," Real-Time App Updates

This new API that Google is soon releasing to beta members has been titled "In-app Updates API" and will give developers two options to choose from. The first "is a full-screen experience for critical updates when you expect the user to wait for the update to be applied immediately," while the second is a "flexible update, which means the user can keep using the app while the update is downloaded. You can completely customize the update flow so it feels like part of your app."

Shutterstock Launches Self-Serve API Subscriptions

For the first time, developers, startups, and small and mid-sized businesses can build products and features that seamlessly integrate Shutterstock's image collection and enable in-app image reselling, providing an additional revenue stream for customers when their end-users license and download images.

Facebook Makes Its First Browser API Contribution

Facebook announced that it has made its first major API contribution to Google's Chrome browser. Together with Google, Facebook's team created an API proposal to contribute code to the browser, which is a first for the company. The code, like so much of Facebook's work on web tools and standards, focuses on making the user experience a bit smoother and faster. In this case, that means shortening the time between a click or keystroke and the browser reacting to that.

How the Belgian Government Innovates Thanks to APIs

Smals, a nonprofit Belgian company, provided a new, API-centric platform to modernize the Belgium government's data architecture and leverage new technologies and security protocols while offering greater efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Smals specializes in delivering IT solutions for the government, social and healthcare organizations, as well as public services that need IT services. The main objective is to work actively and in a manner that is sustainable for the future.

Did you find the API News Roundup for May 2019 helpful? Have a story you want to be included in the next roundup? Leave a message here or email at jmolina@axway.com.